The Great Basin National Park quarter is the 18th design in the America the Beautiful Quarters® Program. Great Basin was named a national park on January 24, 1922.

Great Basin National Park is named for the Great Basin, a geographic area, most of which is in Nevada between two mountain ranges. The park is like a huge oasis surrounded by desert. In contrast with the park's more than 40 miles of streams and 400 springs, the lands around the park include the Mojave Desert and Death Valley.

The park's wildlife, rock formations, and scenery are remakable. Lehman Caves, for example, are the most heavily decorated limestone solution caverns in the western United States. Wheeler Peak is the second highest peak in Nevada.

Resources in the park are not only natural but cultural as well. Some date back to prehistoric times, while abandoned settlements called "ghost towns" date back to the early days of western mining and ranching in the 1800s.

The tree on the quarter, shown in its natural setting of rocky glacial moraines, is a Bristlecone Pine. These beautiful, unique trees grow on high ground in the park and are some of the world's oldest trees. In fact, the park's Bristlecone Pine groves contain trees older than 4,000 years!